Population of 100,000 a possibility, says Constable
Thursday 7th May 2009, 2:56PM BST.
St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft
JERSEY could ‘probably cope’ with a population of over 100,000 as long as Islanders lived sustainably, St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft has said.
Mr Crowcroft said that there would have to be restrictions on the number of cars per household and roads would have to be made safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
Speaking at the Corporate Services Migration and Population Scrutiny hearing yesterday, Mr Crowcroft said: ‘Jersey could certainly support 100,000. Jersey could probably support more than 100,000 if it was living sustainably.’
The Constable suggested restricting cars to one per household and implementing an energy policy. ‘You could actually have more people on the Island with less of an environmental impact,’ he said.
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Two questions for Mr Crowcroft: 1) Do Islanders want a population of 100,000; I think not? 2) Has Mr Crowcroft done his sums? More population means more; houses; larger hospitals; more traffic; more rubbish; more water; more foul water (sewage); the list goes on.
Maybe Mr Crowcroft should have a turn as a city mayor on SimCity; great fun and very educational.
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It amazes me that our politicians can presume to bring more people into our island when we are already struggling to find jobs etc for those who are currently living here!! Do they think that it will all happen as if by magic??
Wake up and smell the credit crunch/the frustration/the deterioration of our island before you go round putting restrictions on peoples property etc! If there could only be one car per household then you would expect us to sell the others……sell them to who?? No one can get work because you keep allowing others into the island leaving those who have been here forever unable to work or pay a mortgage or school there children privately if they so wish!!! Seriously get a clue will you!!!
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Excellent use of such a complex issue to promote a single-minded, dictatorial anti-car agenda. 10 out of 10, constable!
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Aren’t we above 100,000 already? It sure feels like it.
Maybe this has been brought up now to calm people for when the official figure hits 100,000?
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Why should Islanders have more red tape thrust upon them just to accommodate a population of 100.000.Are we not already there Mr Crowcroft? Islanders quality of life has already been taken from them.
There are a lot of things wrong with our system of subjective goverment. We have no community sprit in Jersey most are just looking out for themselves. If I was not jersey born and none of my family lived in Jersey I would leave like many other Islanders have already. And no doubt that day will come.
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Again, another failure by the states seems imminent
The roads in Jersey can not cope as it is!!
How would restricting the number of cars per household help, especially when there are some households with three generations living there because of the lack of affordable accommodation.
By introducing more people, this will further inflate the already bursting rental and purchase prices. The transport system will be pushed to collapse, the refuse levels will increase, unemployment will rise. The list goes on!!
Why not fix the problems before opening the floodgates.
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Listen Si, got news for you mate! the population is probably nearer to 100k than you think!
Also, as a non-driver/car owner you are the last person to talk about cars, driving etc, look at the cock-up your lot has made of St Helier!!!
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How does Mr Crowcroft suggest that we deal with the extra sewage that will be created?
As far as limiting the number of cars per household goes … is he serious?
Where does this 100,000 figure come from anyway? We don’t even know our base population.
Also, if we increase the population we will have to build a lot more homes for unemployed people to live in. Where is the sense in this?
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many islanders do not want 100,000 here.
as for one car per household,why should this be foisted on us.
im with you (5) and (6)
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Unfortunately for those of us that do not live in St Helier a car is an absolute neccesity due to the fact that there is a bus service that runs infrequently during the week, virtually not at all on Sundays and bank holidays and is nonexistent in the evenings.
The island has never had a discernable public transport policy and is unlikely to acquire one in the the next twenty years given the glacial speed at which policy is made in this island and the fact that the States are going to be strapped for cash and will be struggling to sustain spending on current plans and highly unlikely to take on new ones.
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I’m with comments 1-9, you don’t have much support here Mr Crowcroft.
Quite simply Jersey is full.
I Agree we need to reduce cars and impact on the environment. But increasing population will not do this. We need to significantly reduce our population by many thousands as the problems of the future are no longer supporting the elderly or economic growth but food security.
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It would be advisable to cut down on immigration before things get out of hand. I suspect the population is nearer to 120,000. Can anyone prove me wrong?
I don’t want this island ruined for future generations because of short sightedness by our politicians who constantly ignore the majorities wishes anyway.
This looks like a sweetener to me, to get residents used to the idea of more people coming in.
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There is little to worry about as the population will fall rapidly when the finance industry collapses.
The States have done little over the years to improve the plight of farming and tourism. They have only allowed one type of business to expand.
The global crisis in banking will soon hit Jersey.
Forty years ago there were a little over 60,000 here so we could get back to that or even less.
I am sure they have not planned for that!
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Rather than limiting cars and saying what people can and can’t do you just need to improve the bus service, bike facilities, etc. This, coupled with a growing understanding of the environmental impact of our actions, is the more appropriate first step to making sustainable living work.
And yes to number 1 – It’s not just traffic that increases when the population goes up. Add to Mark’s list the growing demographic timebomb/trap that comes with a bigger population. At some point we have to stop, and then we have an even bigger issue to support an ageing population than we are currently facing.
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Hopefully the population will come down soon to more realistic levels maybe 60,000 ish. Then there will be room enough for everyone. If finance takes a dive this could come true a lot sooner than anticipated. Maybe then things will get back to what they were like in the 1960′s and 1970′s, bring back the golden years, away with this rubbish. Lots of money doesn’t necessarily mean progress.
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The problem with increasing population is that it is only a very short term answer.Building more housing units only serves to create more demand in expensive infrastures, schools, social services,special needs and pensions,as well as services such as sewerage and waste disposal. Simply put, a spiral of population expansion and then more expansion to fund this,which is never ending will not solve the problem, nor will Mr Crowcroft’s presently topical eco friendly suggestion of limiting one car per household and suggesting that a solution would be to make roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists.This island has much to offer, but it could be swiftly destroyed by short term policies of increasing population, when it is already facing the very real possibility of the curtailment of its main source of income, the finance industry. What then, will sustain a population of 100,000, Mr Crowcroft?
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More people = more tax = loads of money for the states, they don’t care if we are overpopulated or not. For the States it’s all about figures nothing else
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How is Constable Crowcroft able to talk about plans involving future population numbers when there is no official record of how many people are currently in the island?
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Jacqueline(no 5)How right you are.When I return to visit family in Jersey I feel almost claustrophobic-far too many people crammed in to mini-houses built almost on top of one another.OK if you are lucky enough to have a detached home overlooking a nice bay but the average person in Jersey cannot afford more than a rabbit hutch(if they’re lucky)
As others have said who knows if Jersey may already be up to 100,000?It certainly feels like it.
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The very intellectual Constable Simon Crowcroft – Always giving the people what they want…
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Adrian (no 15) The golden years of the sixties?Wasn’t that when our very own home grown serial paedophile was terrorising the place?Your memories must be different to mine.But I do agree that money doesn’t necessarily mean progress.
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Agree adrian,too many people here already this island is far too small as it is, and bigger population will increase more social problems as we are living in 3rd world squallers on top of each other as it is!
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The inability or lack of desire to control public spending has driven this blind policy of “Growth” at any price,and so our quality of life ,overcrowding etc has steadily dropped while the influx has rocketed,now who will employ these people as jobs dry up and things get tough,some might think ah well they’ll leave,,I think not.would you sooner sit out a recession/depression here or over there…?not much of a contest I would have thought,
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agree with most comments,quality not quantity is what we want.a ruse i suspect to fill all these empty flats lying around the island.as most of you said they can,t cope now with services. stretched to the limit.my husband had to wait a year for op at hospital only to be told 3 weeks ago it was cancelled after he arrived and waited with 3 others for 3 hours and they would get in touch.the way there going things will get a lot worse.
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Islander, nobody planned for that!
The UK didn’t either. Politicians never go for a middle ground, it’s always all or nothing. That along with this really bizarre tendency that Governments have to trust businesses!!!! Well all or nothing comes back to bite you in the proverbial and you’d think we would have learned by now that the middle ground is often a good place.
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Islander # 13, writes that the States have done little over the years to help farming and tourism.
So, if the huge grants and subsidies to the Agriculture and Tourism budgets are not help, what exactly is it?
Notwithstanding this, every effort should be made to limit population growth, including increasing the years required on the island to obtain the right to buy.
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I heard someone on the radio this morning mention ‘current population of around 89,000′. Did this person just stick his fingers into the air and pluck a number from the sky. Nobody knows the current population and that is a very disturbing situation.
They need to stop all this nonsense about what numbers we can deal with until they know what numbers for a fact we are dealing with now. What a joke this lot is.
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When our sewage treatment facilities are at full capacity raw sewage with rainwater is pumped into the sea.
Can Constable Crowcroft, or for that matter, anyone who supports population growth policies, please inform us how we are going to deal with this problem?
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Phil 28 – precisely. Not to mention where we’re going to put the new schools, nurseries, houses etc.
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Sack this Awful Fool clearly he has lost touch with Jersey/Reality , do we really want to be like Hong Kong triping over each other
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Phil wouldn’t it be a good idea to sort out the problems first before allowing more in? Maybe connect the 1 in 6 still not on mains sewers and have proper housing not flats for families etc etc?
I suspect the population is well over 100,000 anyway. It is about time we had a proper head count over here. How many people are invisible to the authorities?
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Not this drivel again!!
Didn’t we just have this debate a few weeks ago?
Seems like a broken record
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The last report I saw about unemployment was that there were over 1,000 people unemployed – what jobs are all these new people going to do?
With regard to allowing in more wealthy people – many of these people are far less wealthy than they were a few years ago. Plunging investment income, businesses going bust, house prices all over the world plummeting, etc. So far few people wanting or able to bring their millions here.
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When will the locals ever admit that external people who settle on the island might just have caused a period of growth, improvement & general prosperity.
Have you not considered the fact that more external people will only mean further improvement?
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Simon said said: “Have you not considered the fact that more external people will only mean further improvement?”
Rather depends on your idea of what is an improvement.
Turning Jersey into another Hong Kong?
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Where you say that we should limit the number of cars to 1 per household. This would not work as some households have 2 or 3. (1 for each parent and 1 for 19/20 year old’s).
You would also have to look into the numbers and maybe even changing housing laws.
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Simon, if you ever study population modelling you’ll find that sustainability requires a population falling within certain limits, too low can mean it dies off altogether, too high brings with it overcrowding and the subsequent problems that brings (crime, overstretched services etc).
‘Bigger’ is not always better because the island itself cannot grow in size, that is obvious.
What the optimal range for the population is who knows but there will be one and it may well be that 100,000 is just too large and could lead to the island’s demise faster than a population that is too small!
And it’s wrong to assume that wealthier always means better, smaller islands manage themselves better it seems than Jersey so it is how you use the money that is key, not just how much of it you have.
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How can we continue to be dictated to .
Mr crowcroft you can not think for a minute that you can get away with this crazy anti car attitude.
We have seen the loss of hundreds of street parking spaces and bollards popping up on every corner . Im angry enough to stand in the next election to put an end to this madness.
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When will Jersey politicians realise that the overwhelming majority of islanders do not want population growth.
If you don’t believe me then hold a referendum.
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Why not build a light rail system,from airport to ST helier,would make good biz sense and be a sustainable public transport system.plenty of land and space to build it.
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Simon mass immigration causes all sorts of problems from increased crime to over population with the resultant rise in things like racism etc. Do you want to live in a police state where you get lock downs after riots etc, etc?
People need space to live in, cram them in like rats and you guarentee massive problems, is this what you want? This is no good for anyone and causes even more errosion of rights as the state has to become more draconian to keep control over its citizens whether local or not.
The more people, the more pollution and damage to the environment. The human population cannot just keep going up can it? Something has to give. I believe if it isn’t controlled by choice it will be controlled by outside factors anyway.
It is up to people to decide to take the easier option before the harder option is forced upon them. If it is the later you can forget about money markets and civilisation as we now know it. Will it boil down to free choice or no choice? Time will tell.
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Bring back Robert le Brocq, he was the last town Constable that was in touch with reality.
“On your bike, Crowcroft!” – he really doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about here and judging by the backlash on this forum almost 100% of the population vehemently disagree with him. Not that it will make much difference though, those in power don’t take any notice anyway.
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Has Crowcroft lost the plot? Its about time the population of this island was reduced and people could start living again instead of just existing and paying for our states members very costly cock-ups.
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“Stomach-Ache
Posted May 8, 2009 at 11:21 am
Islander # 13, writes that the States have done little over the years to help farming and tourism.
So, if the huge grants and subsidies to the Agriculture and Tourism budgets are not help, what exactly is it?”
Those huge grants and subsidies are a direct consequence of almost two decades of neglect of Agriculture and Tourism. They are a belated panic measure.
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The States have not helped agriculture and tourism with ever increasing harbour dues and airport landing fees. In some cases our harbour dues are more expensive than the ports of London. How can our growers compete on the UK markets when they are crippled at the outset?
As for tourism – we’ve been priced out of the market because it costs so much to get here and our freight charges mean everything is so much more expensive in Jersey anyway.
Advertising and subsidies are useless when the end product is just too expensive.
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#simon said- yes we can except that incoming settlers have had a good impact on life here but we can just about cope with the amount of people here at present. Where do you suggest we home the new lot? How about we plough over some more of our island and put up some more buildings that no one can afford to live in. How about we spend more money giving benefits/jobs to those who come over instead of helping those who currently reside here! What about the children growing up here and leaving school looking for work? I know plenty who are constantly struggling to find jobs even though they have had fabulous educations and great exam results!! I was one of them!! How many more people do you want to bring over??? Do you want it so full that we are fighting against one another? Thats what will happen soon enough if this continues or do you not see that!! Already there is tension between cultures over here!! But our politicians dont care really! Seriously this island will be swamped and soon enough it will be so bad, people will be having to be homed by the states and having to claim benefits for everything beause there is no work!! Do you not think about the outcome of the influx of too many people!! We can barely cope now!!
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Jaime, I was saddened by the fact that you have qualified and can find no work, however on looking on the jobs ebsite I see that there are nearly 100 job vacancies in hotels etc why have you not found employment here, if I was to hazard a guess I would say because you feel over qualified to do washing up in a hotel, (I could be wrong) however I know many locals who won’t do it as they seem to think that they are above this kind of work.
If you want the island to be dominated by locals (and why not) then it will need locals to agree to do all kinds of work not just the nice finance jobs, we import labour to do hospitality and farmong etc so there would be a good place for you to start!
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Many non locals work in finance as well you know. Why is it so many people have to be imported for tourism and farming? It wouldn’t be anything to do with the pittence that is paid by way of wages would it?
Anyone who can survive on £5.85 for a 40 hour week over here is a magician as far as I am concerned.
Is £5.85 a good wage for someone with a degree?
Maybe when finance is gone things might get back to normal and the price of everything might come back down to realistic levels? Money isn’t everything as we are now starting to find out to our cost.
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Adrian, £5.85 isn’t a good salary for someone with a degree my point was its £5.85 more than if they are not working!
Your attitude is why we import labour, no I am not working for that bring someone in to do it now please can i have a good finance job, mind you if you are to be believed Finance is on its way out so maybe that farm job is looking better more and more.
Look i don’t blame people for not wanting to do the low paid manual labour but what I am saying is it is unfair to say its ok to bring in labour for that (Even though we have unemployed people who could do it) but its wrong to bring them in for other jobs (Whatever they may be)
I think you will find if finance did go we would have a lot of local people with qualifications that could not find work that they are qualified to do, so to suggest that we still import labour to do it is wrong, we either do the jobs or import labour no picking and choosing
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Adrian , The minimum wage is £6.08 not £5.85
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The minimum wage in london is £7.50p.
it was in papers last week when a cleaner took her employers to court as she had,nt been paid the extra when it went up.
I believe it is now cheaper to live in london than jersey,regarding food clothes and services,i don,t know about rent.
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Gary every country I know picks and chooses who they let in. Just take Australia for example they only allow in what they need and no more. Why should Jersey be any different?
Yes I agree it would be better for most, if not all jobs, to be done by locals and this is what we should strive for. However for some reason this doesn’t happen does it? We just allow any numbers to come in who will then need housing and looking after at some stage won’t they? They will also be able to claim welfare should they need it at some stage as well. I believe J-cats need a good look at, the amount coming in for things liking teaching jobs seem high to me. There also seems certain areas which are full of high paid jobs that go to J-cats surely locals should be trained for these jobs especially if they have bothered to get extra qualifications. If Jersey wants a high grade work force it needs to give the jobs to go with it and not give them to outsiders.
As for what is happening regards immigration I don’t think this is a good way to go do you? We have no idea how many really are here and what they are up to as they can become invisible if they so wish.
My angle of farming and tourism was in the fact that they need to pay decent wages to attracts locals in. Do you seriously expect a local person with a family to manage on £6.08/hour? No chance so why offer these ridiculously low paid jobs out then?
Either we slash costs over here to live, or we raise wages it has to be one or the other doesn’t it, to enable locals to do these type pf jobs?
I would prefer costs were slashed so wages could be realigned downwards and yet the workers would be no worse off than now in real terms. However when you get charged VAT on goods coming in because this is the cost of getting things here is it any wonder things are so over priced?
josp sorry thought it was still £5.85 however how far does £6.08/hour go over here? I shall now use the £6.08/hour min. wage figure from now on thanks for letting me know.
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Jersey is already 11th in the world in population density….. no more people….please.
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Gary….I have found full time employment but it took me nearly a year and a half of flipping burgers and pulling pints before i did!! So no i dont think i am above this kind of work. But how about those that are just leaving college etc who cant even get bar work etc! You say there are 100 jobs but believe me its a lot harder than it looks to get one! I came home with a degree and it still took forever! I know plenty of people who would work in farming and know many who work in hospitality currently. And i am not saying i want the island to be only locals!! What i was saying is that we are barely coping with the amount of people we have in the island at the moment so how about sorting them out first before bringing over more!!! Train them in these areas etc!! Not just pass it over and bring in more people coz its cheaper!!
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Adrian you are right, countries like Australia do pick and choose who they let in, but do you think they would let in someone to do the farming, no the locals do that! They let in skilled labour and there is a qualification (points) process, we do not have that and if we did we would have no farming/tourism etc
I do expect a local person to work for the minimum wage if that is their only alternative, i for one would rather earn something than be a burden on the state which is what we are saying here. I have done many jobs when i was younger, including hotel work etc
I do not disagree that we are becoming over crowded, what I am saying is whilst as locals we pick and choose what jobs we are prepared to do we will always have imported labour.
Jersey also needs to wake up, look at any local building site and I bet they are finished by 4 4.30, then walk past New Look (Formerly Woolworths) the workforce in there are still at it at 6pm when i walk past, its a different mentality over here and we (and I say we) need to understand that when we come out of this recession it will be a different world from the one before it and work longer and harder and maybe for less we may have to do!
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Gary, you are right. Only thing is that Australia did get to the stage of actively advertising for mechanics, hairdressers etc (labourers rather than professionals) and it is such people they let in. Maybe if Jersey used the same tactic they could specify that farm workers were needed, I see no reason why not, possibly it is a system that would work here. A sensible and fair points system might be reasonable.
Adrian is right about locals not being able to afford to live on some of the wages Jersey pays though. People choosing to come here and live in cramped accommodation does not mean that people who already live here (some of whom were born here) should be forced to make that decision just to survive. I now know many people who have come to Jersey and have chosen to live in the cheapest possible accommodation, often with 6/7 people in a property meant for 1/2. Some have for years had the income to move somewhere larger but instead have chosen to use any wage rises to build a massive house back home rather than to raise their standard of living here. The Jersey people I know living in the same level of accommodation don’t have family to share the accommodation or the cost with them, so their outgoings per head are higher and they can’t afford to build such a great house here for their future! They haven’t chosen to live in that accommodation, they have no other option. They can’t even afford to study while they work to secure a higher income in future, even though they desperately want to. The more hours they work the more they can earn to live.
It’s great to let anyone in when you have unlimited space but nowhere does and letting in too many people (regardless of any person’s country of origin) will make things worse for everyone, including the ones actually coming in. And letting people cramp many bodies into small and substandard accommodation continues to penalise those that have no option but to live in such accommodation. I doubt people want to come to somewhere that is already overpopulated and suffering the associated problems of overpopulation. No-one wants that surely, so careful monitoring of the population level is better for current and future inhabitants. Maybe the States should work out the numeric boundaries for a sustainable population level and ensure all vacant positions get filled.
This assumption that growth=better could be a serious disaster.
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£6.09 isn’t a good salary for anyone, degree or no degree.
A degree should not be the decider of someone’s work value.
Some jobs you can only get with a degree (medicine, law etc) but many jobs can be learned through doing. Others people could learn on the job and study.
As a society we are now putting far too much weight on degrees and yet our workforce isn’t getting any better. Try hiring someone with a degree in some area of IT, I’ve been there, it’s a nightmare and the person with even just 2 years actual experience always ended up being the better candidate.
Don’t fall down the UK’s trap of putting degrees on a pedestal, too many jobs are better learned by doing.
You should get paid according to your knowledge and ability and that should be judged completely irrespective of whether or not you have a degree. You are either able to do the job or you are not and if you have the experience you will have proven it already. With the degree you haven’t.
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With more expensive fuel people tend to use their cars for essential purposes only. A policy of one vehicle per household may work in town but we should consider the consequences of this statements on the whole Island. One vehicle per household means that a family now require a single multi utility vehicle to meet all needs including the family holiday in France. It is therefore the small commuter vehicle that has to go and everybody now has to use the big BMW’s or 4×4 for every journey. Further that as with many households both partners work, not always in the same area or at the same time this now means that what was one a single trip to work is now a person being driven, dropped off and the car being driven in the opposite direction only to repeat this performance at the close of the day – we have in effect not only doubled car usage but have also placed legislation that for all practical purposes prevents people using small fuel efficient cars and all in a single, ill considered green stroke.
A bus is only effective if it is running full so needs a high density of population wanting to move to one local at a set time. This works well in town and from certain areas but outside these criteria a bus becomes an environmental liability, a huge metal monster for the most part running empty.
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I guess what I am saying is, should we be importing labour to work on farms hotels etc when we have unemployed people here? I don’t know how you get over the salary aspect, but surely its wrong to bring in cheap labour when we have unemployed local people who are having to claim benefits etc as they have no work, or am i missing something?
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I have just read:-
The United Nations predicts the world’s urban population will rise from 3 billion to 5.5 billion by 2025
Maybe we will have to accept population growth!
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And they have just reduced the housing qualies as well. When will these people learn? We are not Australia and, even there, with the size that it is, there are strict immigration controls. Please, can we have a proper immigration policy? Why has no one got the sense to see the obvious?
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Betty, probably due to a fear of being considered racist. Even on here in recent articles it’s been hard to voice an opinion about overpopulation without being called racist.
However, overpopulation is not about race or nationality or religion or any of those things. It is simply a factual issue that a land can only sustain so many people.
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